There are days when you cruise along and even though you hit speed bumps here and there, life is still good, and then there are days when you get socked in the gut and now it's time to stop and regroup. We have had a lot of speedbumps lately. Today was the sock in the gut so I'm stopping to regroup.
Mike hadn't seen his opthamologist since some time last September or October. We were too busy with the day-to-day visits to Wound Care and things had stabilized for the time being with his eyes. Left eye is still 95% blind with a teeny little window of vision that is like looking through cheesecloth. He'd been having "bleeders" off and on this winter but finally had to get back in for an exam to see how the right eye, his "good" eye, is doing. A few weeks ago, while replacing the shocks on the Dodge, he held his breath while wrenching hard to get a bolt loose and fresh blood squirted out of the blood vessel and had been giving him problems.
A bit of history: As diabetics progress, the body starts killing off blood vessels. This robs parts of the body of needed oxygen. That is when nerves start dying off and diabetics begin having trouble with abscesses, gangrene, losing limbs, etc. In the eye, the blood vessels die off. But the eyeball tells the brain, "Hey, I'm suffocating down here, make me some blood vessels NOW!" The body complies, creating blood vessels that get the job done. But these vessels are weak. Very weak, and they burst easily. We didn't know this was occurring until his vision began to really go bad in October 2007 and he had an eye exam at Walmart, only to be told by the optometrist that his eyes were hemmoraging and glasses weren't even close to being needed, laser surgery was. We have had wonderful opthamologists that have helped Mike. Sadly, the left eye did not heal. As you shoot lasers at
them, they do die, slowly, but they emit a sticky substance to hang on in the eye fluid and as they died off, they pulled the retina off the back of his eye. The surgeon tried to reattach the retina but it didn't do well. We have to be very careful with his right eye.
Today's visit was a blow. The retina on the right eye was examined carefully. It has already begun detaching on the inside of the eye up near the sinus cavity. The surgeon doesn't want to perform
the same surgery he did on the left eye. Based on how that turned out, he told Mike there is nothing medically that can be done, other than he strongly suggested finding out some way to get Mike's sleep apnea checked out and get a cpap machine because the body is starved for oxygen and that will help prolong his right eye. In the end, however, Mike has passed point of no return and we just have to watch things carefully and be prepared. As you can imagine, this brought about a whole new set of emotions. He has been through so much already. Now to not be able to see..........he has joked for years, "it's a race between me going blind and the Rapture taking us Home." Today, we saw that race tightening up and we may very well be coming down to the wire on one or the other.
When God brought us together in 2001, I was mystified at the timing. Why now? Why not in high school? Why not 1991? I will know that answer one day, but for now, I do see Him bringing us together because He knew there would be challenges that Mike would be going through and I am to be his support. I do not grieve. I am not my mother, whining about "This isn't the man that I married!" and worrying myself into cancer, as she did. No. I squared my shoulders today and said, "Bring it." I am stronger now than I was back in 2001. I am smarter, more capable. I have courage where I had none. I have a servant's heart for my husband and I love him dearly. I only pray he has peace and can seek God's strength through this should the Lord tarry a while longer. I live under no illusions. If you think things have been wild and uncertain these last four years, you have no clue what is coming. That realization adds to my resolve and my mission is to raise a godly, loving child, encourage Katherine as she grows as a wife, and to be the best helpmeet Mike could ever hope for. God has moved paths here and there and provided for us when I didn't know how we would hold it all together. Why does He keep putting Mike through these trials? Maybe this side of heaven we will not know the full extent of how our lives have impacted others, but from the kind notes that people have messaged me with after reading entries about our journey with nec/fac, I pray that this, too, will show God's love clearly to someone needing that encouragement. Maybe this is our time to stand on the roof (however, not on this house. The roof might collapse) and show people God's power and the enemy's failures.
In his early days in the hospital last year, he was visited very often by a really darling older gentleman, Pastor Dave. He is a visiting pastor from our church, Salem Evangelical Church. His wife, Anne, is one of the most energetic, happy, positive women I've ever met. You know the story in the Bible, faith being so strong if you told a mountain to collapse into the sea it would? Anne would be the force that would CHASE that mountain into the sea. Every single week she calls to
get an update to include Mike on the church prayer list. Pastor Dave has made it a point to come visit Mike here at home and it's blessed Mike so much. His father left for good when he was six. Mike has not seen his dad in 44 years, although after some letters exchanged in the 90's, he discovered his father is a really creepy, nasty individual, athiest, White Supremacist and anti-semite. The personality cocktail from hell. He has had a succession of male friends in and out of his life.
For whatever reason, he's not had a lot of friends, but then again, he's not into lying, cheating, drinking, running around, or pretending to be stupid. An old friend from grade school and high school is more interested in getting drunk and online gambling and calls Mike a Bible thumper (which, incidentally, is a compliment to Mike). Even our old pastor has cut off all communication with him. Seems once Mike was no longer in construction he wasn't really all that interesting because he couldn't supply leftovers from job sites. He needed that pastor when he went back to work in the prisons and the door had closed. Humans will always leave you feeling empty and alone. Humans will be the first to run out on you. I am as guilty of that as anyone. I've had to mea culpa my way through a lot of things in my life. When we run out of people here, we seem to think that's it. Well's run dry. There is NO ONE for me. That is when God makes His biggest entrance. And He does it without fanfare. He is simply standing there and you see him after the crowd around you disperses. His hand is out. It was there all the time. We simply fill our lives up with too many "touchable" people that end up leaving us. We put too many people between us and God and we miss that hand that was out the whole time waiting for you to take it.
Yesterday, at Pastor Dave's urging, Mike attended a men's Bible study at the church. He'd been wanting to for a few months, but the enemy always seemed to throw a monkey wrench in the plans. Yesterday, he finally made it. While Mike was there Pastor Dave's wife, Anne, called for her weekly update. We had a lovely chat. I shared with her something God had shown me about my husband. A dad is an important part of a child's life. Mike desired that presence of a man in his life for as long as he could remember. Just a dad. We live in this world of immediate gratification and response, and he'd been seeking a father figure like that, seeking a mentor, seeking ANYONE that would give a boy direction. My uncle was the closest thing he'd really had to a dad, but life stepped in and they went their separate ways. I told Anne yesterday, Mike will have to come to a point where he sees GOD the Father as that father figure. Hebrews 11:1 tells us "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." We have to walk in faith, as the faith heroes of the Bible did. Mike may not have his earthly dad, Mike may not have mentors that he's wanted, or those friends he could trust, but he has his Father. His Abba Father. The God that will love him like no father ever could. He created Mike.
When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 I was immediately fearful for my girls. How will they survive without me? God spoke to my heart and said, "I made them! I love your daughters more than you ever could because I created them, and if it is your time to come Home to Me, I will take care of them." That Hebrews 11:1 faith, when grabbed on to, shows you God's love, His all consuming, deep, abiding, protective, providing, rescuing love He has for you. Now, at a time when Mike's vision may be slowly waning and the light fades, all the people around him, except those of us immediately there, fade away an and either with vision or without, Mike will see that all along, there He was standing there, just waiting for that hand of Mike's to reach out to Him. I love my husband so much. I would willingly take anything he's gone through just to give him a day's peace. I am so proud to be his wife and so thankful to be on this journey we've been on. I don't want earthly
things to make me happy, gifts make me uncomfortable, I hate shopping, a new shirt from Goodwill nearly puts me over the edge of giddy. I have what makes me happy. But being Mike's wife, all the good, all the bad, all the funny, all the sad, it is a PRIVILEGE to walk this walk with him. Sight or no, we live our vows and that is the one thing I pray that, sight or not, he will ALWAYS see.
